


Perturbations

by AliaMael



Series: Learning curve [4]
Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Denial, Gen, Stalking, The denial and the stalking ARE the unhealthy coping mechanisms by the way, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26145187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliaMael/pseuds/AliaMael
Summary: Minamimoto had always been chaos. That was what had made him sointerestingfrom the start, but also why Joshua needed to monitor him.(It hadnothingto do with avoidance of his own problems.)
Series: Learning curve [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888963
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Perturbations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JaynisKobb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaynisKobb/gifts).



Joshua could have killed Minamimoto that day, that last day of the Game. But he hadn't. Not that he really thought it through at that point, too focused on everything else, but the fact stayed the same.

The thing was: Minamimoto was chaos. And for way too many years already, Joshua's most dangerous enemy had been _boredom_. Minamimoto had been a welcomed distraction as soon as he had entered the Reaper's ranks. (Not _enough_. _Nothing_ had been enough.) So, in his own way, Joshua liked Minamimoto. Hence his reflex to keep him alive.

Now, his appreciation for Minamimoto had absolutely _nothing_ in common with the way Sanae doted on him like he was a cute baby animal, and that even after he had been bitten to the blood. 

Of course, Joshua had been curious. (Curiosity was a defense mechanism at that point.) (And on top of that, in this exact moment it was better to focus on pulling the truth out of Sanae rather than on Neku and Megumi and Shibuya.) So he had pushed, prodded, and watching the drama unfold had kept him anchored in the moment.

But eventually, they left.

Joshua resented Sanae for that. After all, his little experiment with Taboo was not the only one having _almost_ died today! (But Neku hadn't been able to shoot.) (But maybe Sanae was too much like him, couldn't bear to think too much on what had happened, what had _almost_ happened, what would happen then. Not right away.)

He didn't want to think of how much brighter Shibuya already felt, nor of what it had cost everyone. Didn't want to try to unpick the mess of… everything about Neku, really.

They couldn't be more different. Young human against Composer... not even _that_ old but already old enough to be eroded by time like by acid. And yet, they were closer than should be possible.

Like a negative picture. Similar lines, opposite colors. The same, and not.

(Like someone he could maybe have become, in different circumstances.)

Minamimoto would have been a good distraction. _Sanae_ could have been a good distraction. (Megumi would never be a distraction anymore.)

He didn't want to think, _period_.

So maybe in the following days he spent a lot of time stalking both Minamimoto and Sanae, but it was reasonable to keep an eye on the last Taboo Noise in his city, wasn't it? And Sanae, well, he was responsible for it so… it was probably justified too.

(Everything was a mess and even after the shock of discovering his true nature Minamimoto seemed to deal better than Joshua, and it was supremely irritating.)

(It was easier to be irritated than to confront… everything.)

At least Minamimoto was proving interesting, as usual. In spite of all Joshua's predictions that he would turn more feral by the day now that he _knew_ , he was instead becoming weirdly more balanced. He was even _befriending_ Kariya. The most antisocial person Joshua had ever met (worse than even Neku) (don't think of Neku) was _making friends_.

There was something infuriating in the fact that a damn _Noise_ could get friends when Joshua was stuck waiting for Sanae to deign to spend time with him. (He was not jealous. That would be way too pathetic.)

He knew he had changed. Shibuya was proof enough. And yet, he felt oddly frozen in time, unable to take the steps needed to make that evolution tangible, and watching Minamimoto progress by leaps and bounds was… he wasn't sure what it was. It took his mind off of what he didn't want to confront, so it was good. But not _only_ good.

Minamimoto was learning about life, Joshua was learning about Minamimoto, and he was trying hard to avoid thinking of the gap left by Megumi's Erasure (he would have to appoint a new Conductor sooner or later, but for now it could wait), or the fact that Neku and co were now alive again, which put them all out of his reach (theoretically, but then he didn't plan to go kill Neku _once again_ so the theory was pretty sound).

It was genuinely fascinating to see how much a bunch of Noise held together by the spiritual equivalent of duct tape could evolve. Joshua was beginning to suspect that at some point Minamimoto would even feel human emotions and not just mimic them. (Joshua didn't count "urge to kill" and "satisfaction at balancing an equation" as human emotions, at least not by themselves. Even if some humans felt them, it was not _all_ there was to them.)

In fact, the more he thought about it, the less he wanted Minamimoto to find his balance. It was too interesting to document the changes he was going through. Maybe he could push him further if he showed signs of settling down…?

And then, way sooner than he would have thought, Minamimoto demonstrated what looked like genuine affection. (And urg, Sanae was so _sappy_.) That would not do.

Time to step up the game.

**Author's Note:**

> This serves as an introduction for the next fic in this series, I'm not leaving you on a cliffhanger just for funsies, you can put your weapons back ;p


End file.
